It Only Took Some Spare Change To Completely Transform This Table

It's hard to fathom that a table this gorgeous could possibly be a DIY project.

It started out from an 80"x32" solid core birch door. These are the lightweight, inexpensive interior doors you can find at any hardware store.

A layer of stain brings out the color of the wood that will shine through the pennies. A trim edges around the door to keep everything in place.

Now the door is ready to come inside. The family dog is unimpressed.

Now it's time to put on a good TV show and spend time sorting pennies. You can get uncirculated pennies at the bank for the brightest shine. Then it's just up to you to sort the medium brown and dark brown coins.

You can use whatever adhesive you have on hand, but Loctite is recommended for being a little more flexible than other Super Glue types.

Now the pattern comes through, block by block.

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Keeping a diagonal through-line will help the pattern stay on track.

If the pennies don't line up, you'll have to go through and cut them with a bench grinder.

The angles should be 30-60-90 with the diagonal 30 degrees from the center line and 60 from the front edge.

The easiest way to fit the pennies into uneven spaces is just to measure and cut the pennies (just don't tell Uncle Sam).

Aviation snips are one of the easier ways to do this.

Interestingly, the pennies made after 1982 (zinc) are easier to cut since they are softer and less malleable than the older ones with a higher copper concentration.

At this point, the pattern is really starting to come together. Hopefully everything turned out straight and even.

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Almost done.

Now for the fun, messy part: mix up a two-stage epoxy that's normally used on bar table tops. There's a resin and an activator that's mixed twice and then set.

A hairdryer gets the bubbles out and the pennies look like they're underneath a layer of water.

The weight of the table with the pennies and the resin settled is over 110 pounds.

Just for fun, this table has one penny tails-side-up, just to drive OCD guests a little crazy.